Watford Through the Ages
May 3rd, 2021
Celebrating Local and Community History Month
May is Local and Community History Month and time to celebrate the local heritage around us. The month aims to increase awareness of local history, promote history in general to the local community and encourage all community members to participate.
Activities happen across the UK and include trips, library exhibitions and local lectures. It is an excellent way for groups to highlight local history and for local people to get involved.
While it may seem that the local area is the one place we do not want to focus on at the moment, it might just be the perfect time to do so. After all, most of us have seen little else in the last year, and although restrictions are easing, they have not gone altogether. We can learn so much from Local History and the local environment and enjoy sharing that knowledge.
Building and street design can reveal so much about how an area has changed over time, while local parks and beauty spots tell us about how different groups have used urban spaces.
Many schemes are currently looking for help in charting how the local area has changed over the years, especially during the lockdown, so May is an excellent time to get involved. It’s an opportunity to record local history as well as learn something from it.
If you are thinking of ways to explore Local History Month, make sure to celebrate all that is local – heritage, nature, urban living; all of them deserve a shout-out this May.
So, to mark Local and Community History Month, here is a brief outline of the history of our town.
The first reference to the area of Watford was made in the Domesday book of 1086, which refers to the Manor Of Cashio, though the records do not specifically mention Watford. Evidence in The Domesday records suggests that agriculture was important during the 11th Century as they show four corn-grinding mills.
By Mary Forsyth Watford began as a settlement in the 12th century when a market was granted to the Abbot of St Albans as the lord of the manor. He chose a site along a route already used by travellers, where the market continued to be held until 1928. The Abbot also arranged for the first church to be built, St Mary’s, the parish church of Watford.
The earliest domestic buildings to survive are the Bedford Almshouses, built near the St Mary’s Church in 1580. Like most Hertfordshire towns at this period, most of Watford’s inhabitants would have been concerned with farming the nearby fields.
When in the 16th century Henry VIII closed the abbeys and monasteries, he took over the land belonging to St Albans Abbey. He sold Cassio to a man whose descendants became the Earls of Essex and lived at Cassiobury House.
Monmouth House from the 17th century; the Free School, Frogmore House, Benskin House (now the museum), Little Cassiobury and Russells from the 18th century, and some of the High Street shops are the only buildings that remain from this period.
It was the early 1800s that saw the most significant and most rapid changes to the town. The Grand Union Canal brought goods not easily available before. Even more important was the opening of the railway in 1837, with its links to London, the West Midlands and Lancashire, which encouraged new industry here.
The traditional agricultural industries had been supplemented in the 18th century by brewing and preparing raw silk, and printing had started on a small scale. The development of paper making along the local rivers led to the manufacture of the machinery it needed, and from this grew other types of engineering. By the early 1900s, Watford was an established industrial centre.
The 19th century also saw a rapid expansion in housing as people moved to the town for work. Most of the streets in the town centre were laid out in the second half of the 19th century. The local government had to change to meet the demands of the growing population. First the local Board of Health, then the Urban District Council and finally, from 1922, the Borough Council took control of the town’s affairs.
The industry changed too. In the 20th century, between the wars, the major employer was the railway. Printing became the most important industry after World War II. Now with the decline in manufacturing, the service industries have become the main employers.
And still, more people have been attracted to the town, whether for work or leisure, as the MI and the M25 made it more accessible. Watford is now the largest Hertfordshire town.
Joe Rylett – Your Personal Estate Agent
01923 549 037